Drugs, Inc.

The supply chain of cocaine stretches around our world, bringing vast wealth to a few ... and misery to millions. Follow its trail through the eyes of peasant farmers producing cocaine paste, a trafficker tied to Mexican cartels and a 28-year-old crack dealer in Miamis poorest neighborhood. And literally see the true nature of cocaine addiction via revolutionary brain photography in a leading lab in Brookhaven, N.Y.

Heroin can be life threatening, claiming the lives of numerous victims. Follow this opium derivative as it begins in a remote Afghan heroin lab that processes the raw materials and then on to Chicago, where a dealer demonstrates its final preparation for street sale. Gain insight into its insidious powers from users, and witness a police raid on a heroin distribution network in New Jersey. Plus, go inside one radical attempt to combat heroins social costs by supplying it free to addicts.

Inside the world of producers, traffickers, dealers, users, doctors, and cops who make up the multi-billion-dollar industry.

Known by users as the ultimate “love drug,” ecstasy’s euphoric high comes with major lows: Ravers have died from it and organized crime gangs will kill for it.

Ketamine—chemically, a compound called ketamine hydrochloride—is a drug that was developed in the 1960s to sedate animals and humans for surgery, though it eventually was replaced by medications that worked faster with less risk. Beginning in the 1990s, initially to the puzzlement of police, burglars began breaking into veterinary clinics and stealing ketamine. They soon learned that recreational drug users had discovered ketamine and were turning it into the new hallucinogenic party drug. In its standard powdered form, ketamine looked like cocaine, and could be snorted in the same way. But it also could be easily modified for injecting, smoking or even mixing into drinks.

For a few dollars, users can access dozens of compounds that mimic cocaine, ecstasy or marijuana. Sold as “Bath Salts” or “Spice,” these drugs are entirely legal.

The gambling mecca Sin City plays host to 40 million tourists a year. In storm drains beneath the Las Vegas strip, homeless addicts get high on crack in underground shanties, while in half-built suburbs, police battle marijuana gangs for control of the citys slump-hit homes.

In Hawaii, which has one of the highest rates of crystal meth users in the nation, National Geographic Channel cameras follow along on a raid to a drug traffickers house to discover a woman who continues to deal crystal meth while her husband is in jail.

The devastating consequences of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana resulted in a wave of small-scale drug dealers taking over the streets of New Orleans. As a means of coping with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatized locals have turned to cocaine.

Heroin, cocaine and prescription pills in plentiful supply makes Los Angeles one of the biggest drug distribution hubs in the U.S.

The most dangerous city in the USA, Detroit, is a perfect mark for todays growing drug industry. Dealers are learning cater to inner city clientele by selling smaller amounts of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine for single-digit prices.

San Francisco, Calif. — the epicenter of the 1960s psychedelic revolution — is notorious for drugs. But in the new millennium, the city, especially the gay community, is struggling to recover from a meth epidemic. The enabler of this situation is the Asian cartel, which has been poisoning San Francisco with high quality meth for almost 25 years — but the Mexican cartels are intent on taking over. Nat Geo goes inside one of the worst drug ghettos in America — the heart of the drug trade.

Chicago, the biggest open-air crack and heroin market in America is at saturation point. The result: record levels of overdoses and homicides, as gangs fight over drug turf.

Denver - the mile high city - has just legalized recreational use of Marijuana. The citys gang-banger dealers have battled falling profits since medical Marijuana became law, and forced them to push new products. This latest move is last straw.

In Kensington north Philadelphia, heroin, crack cocaine and PCP are dealt from a hundred different corners. Kensington is a giant drug drive thru. But for the addicts and dealers its a deadly trap that threatens to drive them literally insane.

Phoenix, Ariz., is the wholesale drug capital of America, under the control of one of Mexicos most powerful and ruthless drug organizations -Â- the Sinaloa Cartel. Almost 200 miles north of the Mexican border, the city has become the major stopping off point for the large-scale distribution and transshipment of marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine up from Mexico and out to the rest of the country.

See the underground world of drugs through the eyes of its makers. A former British gangster serves as guide into this illicit underworld, visiting a secret hash-making location nestled in the mountains. Check out growers in Holland who are leading a horticultural revolution in high-grade cannabis. Follow a batch of raw opium from an Afghan poppy field to an Iranian heroin lab. Follow the supply chain of cocaine through the eyes of Colombian peasant farmers producing the drug in a paste.

Every pill popped, pipe smoked and shot injected comes with a price tag. Some dealers focus their efforts on high society users — paying top dollar for the best quality stuff, while others focus on quantity — selling users just enough to scratch the itch and come back for more. Either way, the smuggling and selling of drugs brings in big money. And some of the people handling it are the best in the business.

Behind the idyllic veneer of being one of the safest cities in the U.S, Salt Lake City is suffering from a massive drug epidemic. National Geographic pulls back the curtain and reveals the secret world of drug addiction in the Mormon community, the arrival of the cartels, and the dangers to the officers trying to control it.

Washington, D.C., was once “Crack City” and the murder capital of the U.S. But an increased police presence following Sept. 11 made drugs scarce. In the neighborhoods of southeast D.C., one drug remained — PCP. And its causing havoc. NGC goes inside the chaotic world of PCP where users think theyre invincible and can be driven to insane acts of depravity. Visit the emergency room unit where doctors treat up to 80 psychotic patients high on PCP each month.

No description

Molly, a powdered form of the drug MDMA, is exploding in popularity across the United States. Formerly marketed in pill form as Ecstasy, Molly is a total rebrand. Marketed as purer, cleaner and “without the additives,” this powder has become the most fashionable new drug for young people. But as the consumer demand for Molly has exploded, the production of pure MDMA has struggled to keep up with supply. As a result new, dangerous chemicals are finding their way into the market.

Baltimore, a once prosperous city, lost many of its jobs along with its steel mills. In return, the city developed one of the biggest heroin problems in the country. For many of those that remain amid the poverty and abandoned homes, the “Heroin Hustle” is the way of life. One strip of Pennsylvania Avenue alone is estimated to take in $10 million a year from heroin sales. With the business booming, the heroin market is expanding outward to the suburbs, and the authorities are struggling to cope.

With more than 4 million regular users in the United States alone, cocaine has become worth more than gold. Join Nat Geo Channel as we go inside one of the largest markets in the country, Los Angeles, Calif.

The rapidly growing appetite for California Sour Diesel, a potent strain of marijuana said to induce an instant high, is helping fuel a violent drug underworld that stretches from coast to coast.

A look at the gangs that supply party goers with illegal drugs during New Years Eve celebrations in New York City.

As tourists flood New Orleans, so do drug dealers eager to make a profit; in a fierce competition one dealer becomes a target when he sells fake drugs.

Chicago, Illinois, is the drug hub of the Midwest and one of the most dangerous large cities in the United States. The Fourth of July is one of the bloodiest nights of the year and a time when the demand for drugs booms.

The relationship between the million-dollar hip-hop industry and the billion-dollar drug industry; rappers in Calif. use drug money to pay for their studio time.

Thousands of students head to Cancun, Mexico for Spring Break and some have only one thing on there mind: to get wasted.

As trafficking drugs through the Caribbean increases in preference to the land route across the Mexican border, gangs in the Dominican Republic have become a key players in the transhipment of cocaine.

When Pittsburgh police crack down on heroin, they inadvertently open the door for wannabe dealers that see a chance to muscle their way into the market with a killer brand.

The drug of choice in Silicon Valley is cocaine, but a cop crackdown is pushing dealers and their programmer clients to meth.

Heroin on Staten Island is reaching epidemic proportions as dealers from New Jersey take advantage of a crackdown on prescription pills thats leaving teenagers desperate for a soporific high.

Cocaine is Europe-bound and which means a white-knuckle ride along the Amazon, to the docks of Ghana and Nigeria and all the way to Amsterdam.

Outlaw bikers fight cops and Chinese Triads to keep control of the crystal meth trade.

Marijuana is widespread amongst the student population in Boston and, with National Weed day on the horizon, dealers and students are gearing up.

In Vancouver, a suburban gang war and heavy police presence drives some dealers and their customers to move downtown. But the cops are in hot pursuit.